Record Breaking Aus Time Attack
Images: Brett W Photo
Over 80 cars competed in the record breaking 2026 edition of the Aus Time Attack at Winton Motor Raceway from June 27-28.
The Australian Auto-Sport Alliance sanctioned Aus Time Attack is all about setting the best time possible, much like a qualifying session. Each driver was given nine, 12-minute sessions over the two days to complete set the fastest time.
At the end of the weekend, it was Mitsubishi Evo driver Paul McKinnin who prevailed taking both the outright honours and the Pro Class.
McKinnon was pushed throughout the weekend by Darren Bishop, so much so McKinnon had to set a new event lap record to get the better of his fellow Evo driver.
McKinnon briefly lost the top spot just before lunch on Sunday, but the Pulse Racing driver responded with the lap record, a 1m 19.998s time.
In the end Bishop was forced to settle for second position 0.44s behind McKinnon, however he did end up taking out the Open Class. Third overall went to Richard Perini at the helm of his Ginetta G55.
In the Pro class McKinnon took the win from Perini. Third went to Martin Notaras who had never competed in his machine prior to the weekend, he got more and more comfortable with each session.
Bishop dominated the Open Class winning by 3.7s from Ben Trevenna, with Subaru WRX STI driver Troy Patterson rounding out the top three.
Both the Clubsprint and entry level Prod Sprint categories were hugely competitive with over 30 entries in each class.
One of the performers of the event was Michael Garland, his 1m 23.439s time was good enough to win the Clubsprint category by nearly a second, but more notably he finished fourth overall.
Jamal Assaad threw everything at it on Sunday but ended up 0.9s shy of Garland’s benchmark. Paul Singh finished the event third in class.
Prodsprint, the category for production cars was the closest class of all with the top four drivers ending the event within a single second.
In the end Josh Muggleton ended up on top driving a Toyota GR Yaris, his 1m 28.464s time put him 0.5s clear of the rest.
Less than 0.04s separated the final two on the podium, Hailong Wang driving a BMW M2 Competition set his best time on lap 2 of the weekend, Audi TT driver Matthew Brown could not beat him.
Porsche GT3 driver Kelvin Cheng won the Supercar category.
Enthusiast Motor Insurance ran a Cars and Coffee event on both days of the event and also allowed those attending an opportunity to drive on the track during the lunch break. Many car enthusiasts in the exotic sportscars and muscle cars took the opportunity to attend.
Blend Line TV covered the event for the very first time, you can watch all of the action on Blend Line TV Club, click here to sign up.
